


pray to your gods and hope they listen.

by Reyavie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: A+ Parenting, Fix-It, as in skadi wanders around winterfell just because, fear the winter, odd notions of the definition of divinity, old gods being old gods, protective gods being protective, winter is already here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-05-21 03:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14907524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyavie/pseuds/Reyavie
Summary: Lady Stark could never speak of the day an unknown woman took her husband's bastard away. Jon would always recount it around the fire, smiling as his mother stated, yet again, that she had not tried to kill anyone. The other woman would have been dead otherwise.Sometimes, the Gods listen to prayers. Very rarely, they answer.





	1. what is hidden between prayers.

**xxxXXXxxx**

 

The last days were a blur in his mind. The sickness had come, fast and strong, gripping him tight and smothering him in fever. He could barely breathe during the night and even the simplest things – bathe, eat, stand – did not come easily or at all. It was scary. It was even scarier to see the fear in his father’s eyes every time he came near. Jon tried to tell him to rest, to not worry. He would be fine.

His voice barely obeyed him.

The boy laid carefully on his bed, pushing the covers away at random intervals in response to the fever. It came and went like the winds outside, not bothering to give him a moment to rest. The worse was his chest, heavy, tight, as if someone had slipped him into clothing three times too small. He couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t eat properly, all he wanted was to sleep until the pain stopped.

Was this the punishment of the Gods, he wondered, staring at the spots littering his darkened ceiling. It was silly to come so late though. He was five. A sin such as his should never have been allowed to remain alive and well for so long. And it was such a nice life. Jon would suffer through a million comments, through a million heated gazes from the Lady of the Castle just to keep the gift that was his father and brother.

The urge to cough gripped him again and he swallowed, trying to make it recede. Every time he coughed, it was like someone was making him drink liquid fire.

“Here.”

A cold hand slipped below his neck, tugging him forward in the direction of a small cup. The tea inside was fragrant, she said – stinky, he corrected mentally every time – a mix of herbs he didn’t remember tasting before. It was awful, and it made him temporarily want to throw up, but it always slid down his throat and chased the scratching away. The hand didn’t leave until there was no liquid inside the cup. It was oddly soothing.

“Are you done? You still need to eat something before your brother comes along.”

“He won’t…” Jon licked his lips carefully, waiting until the liquid cleared his throat. “Lady Stark won’t let him.”

“Yes. Because that has stopped him the last seven times.” Fondness colored those words.

Jon had no idea who the lady was. He remembered her – vaguely – from the courtyard, he thought? Maybe? Maybe she was a servant? She didn’t dress at all like a servant, long black sleeves and a soft black dress that shone softly in the low light of his room. Whomever she was, she was with him the second his father left through the door, checking on his temperature, forcing him to drink broth even when he didn’t want to, cleaning his sweat away when the discomfort was too great. She didn’t coddle him, not at all, but there was some gentleness in her brisk manner; in her voice when she told him whispers of someone she called Thiazi, the great hunter. Did he know there was once a wolf large enough to swallow the sun and so scary was he, that the Gods came together to trap him before he could harm anyone? A god once lost his magical hammer had had to dress as a bride to get it back. Did he know the story of the Goddess who could not sleep with the seagulls’ cries? _You don’t know any of these_ , she griped, matter-of-factly pulling his blankets closer, _what do they teach the children these days_?

He liked her voice. He liked the way she gave him her whole attention, even though he was a bastard and not worthy of a single servant’s attention. He liked her name. Skadi. Short. Strong. It fit her like it was tailored around her tall form. He liked her eyes. They were sharp, wide and attentive, large on her thin face. They were grey, just like his, like she was some sort of older cousin which had come from somewhere far away merely because he was sick. It was a nice thought. It was not real, he knew, he knew, but it made him feel so much better. Jon was aware he should not enjoy it but could not stop himself from doing so.

“Ned, are y—” the door did not open completely and it did not need to. Jon felt the discomfort he always felt in Lady Catelyn’s presence announce her entrance far more quickly than her voice. He wanted that door to close. He wanted her away. This was the sole place where she didn’t come to, it was his and solely his. “What are you doing here?”

He struggled to sit up and respond – he had the right to be there, his father said so – but the accusing blue eyes were not fixed on him.

“Skadi?”

His caretaker did not react to the Lady of the Castle or to his calling. She patted down his wayward curls, reached for the small towel drenched in cold water and began cleaning his face carefully. Lady Stark’s glare evolved into true anger and even shifted to him. No, no, he did nothing. Skadi did nothing. She was just looking after him.

“Who are you?” Lady Stark persisted. “Who gave you permission to be here?”

Skadi stilled, still looking at him. Her eyes became sharper, narrowed into upset slits, and he could swear, swear with all his being, that they shone against the gloomy atmosphere. A shiver, that had nothing to do with his sickness, ran down his back and lodged, heavy and painful on his belly.

“You can see me.” The woman moved away from him, sitting on the tall chair resting by his bedside. All her attention focused on Catelyn. “Odd,” Skadi declared softly. “I didn’t expect a crisis of faith after having your prayers answered.”

Lady Stark opened her lips, likely to scream for help – he scrounged his eyes together as to keep the sound away, waiting for that tone he hated so much – but it was replaced by Skadi’s voice. Calm. Gentle.

“Sit.”

Jon’s body jerked. Only his weakness kept him lying. The voiced order slipped onto his body, rode on his bloodstream. Every bone in his body was crying for him to move, _sit up_ , just a little, it was not that hard, _just do it_ because to not follow that word was a sin without measure. Lady Stark was already kneeling on the floor – _see, it was so easy_ – hands splayed open by her side, wide eyes open and locked onto black-haired woman. Suddenly, they had both realized something very different than a wayward servant was taking place.

Skadi’s hand pressed down on his shoulder like a vice.

“Not you,” she corrected.

His body slumped against the mattress.

“You. You will sit and listen.”

Jon could not look away from her. The black-haired woman’s back was straight, proud, attentive, black velvet soft against his skin and it felt like Jon had just slipped onto a forbidden place. She seemed so serious. Like the people he sometimes saw meeting his father during the mornings, bringing all the news of the dangers outside his world. Opposite to her, Lady Catelyn sat on the cold floor, sweating under her heavy clothing and struggling to get up. The stone floors were likely freezing, so should she? Was she sick too? Weak? Did she feel faint?

He opened his lips to speak these questions, one after the other, but Skadi’s hand was still on shoulder and Skadi’s fingers were still tight in a voiceless warning. He kept quiet and tranquil. Like a little mouse; like when he played with Robb in the kitchens in search of sweets.

“I have been thinking very deeply about you, girl.”

Her voice did not sound like Skadi’s anymore. There was this sound. He heard it during the night, when his window was not closed properly. The wind roared outside but all he heard was this whisper, this tiny promise of something much worse outside, as it entered through that small crack in the glass protection. It was more frightening than all of Nan’s stories put together.

“I allowed the presence of your Gods here,” she continued, ignoring him completely in favor of the other woman. “We are so many, we tend to step onto each other’s realms when the cause comes. I allowed you to enter every day in their little hut and call their names… even as you ruled my lands and claimed my gifts. As you made your children memorize their names instead of my own. I believe I was kind. I am not known for kindness.”

The woman shifted on the wooden chair, long arms dangling over the sides, thin long fingers tapping away at the dark wood. Rhythmic, once, twice, again, again, Jon timed his breathing to her movements to control the fear he could not erase. It was not easy, his throat still burned, but he could sooner stop breathing.

“And yet… and yet.” Her frown became more pronounced, more upset. “You repeated them so many times. Those words. Make him die, you said. Take him away, Stranger, make him die. Kill him, if only he wasn’t here, you begged.” Tap, tap, tap, her fingers tumbled against the wood as the rhythm picked up. “It is enough to make anyone go mad. You are not even brave enough to do the deed yourself. No. You pray to your little gods and hope they wash the sin from your hands.”

Lady Stark’s hands were fists on the ground. She tried to speak but there was the _thing_ in the air filling the room. He was a boy and he was young but whatever it was told him this was not a time to speak. Do not cross the Gods, his very blood whispered, because to draw their anger was to court death. And the woman, sitting so careless on his childhood’s room, was angry at Lady Catelyn.

No. No. Past anger. Anger was him stealing a sweet bread at dinner and being caught. This was past it, past anything he could understand. Jon shifted his gaze to his stepmother and wondered how she could ignore the fear and attempt to speak under the black-haired woman’s gaze. No order in the world would force him to speak before Skadi said otherwise.

“Ah, girl. You come here, to _my home_ , to _my realm_ and invite another God onto _my lands_. You dare offer him _my child_ ’s blood.”

Her hands stilled. Silence fell, inside and outside and his room, suddenly, felt like the crypts where his dead family dwelled.

Skadi rose from her chair. In that moment, to Jon’s eyes, she looked more than a servant, more than a Lady. She looked like a queen, black and silver-crowned with all the stars in the sky. His fever, it could only be his fever, but she looked so pretty, like the snow-covered fields at their most lovely. The thing upon the air, that unnameable feeling, pressed down more strongly. Gods, he could not cry, not in front of them.

“You’ll find no Stranger here, girl,” the black-haired being whispered. “Only Winter. And if you call upon Him once more in my vicinity, it will not be He who will answer.”

The winds banged on his window. One. Twice. Thrice.

“Leave before I lose my patience.”

It was the exact moment when the window crashed due to the pressure. Wind ran in, dragging snow and water in a chilling whirlwind. Jon pulled himself back against the head of his bed, trying to shield himself but the cold never reached him. No, in fact, it seemed to curl around Catelyn’s form, tugging upwards, tugging her away from him and his companion in an almost punishing fashion.

(It curled around Skadi like a well-behaved hound, caressing her cheeks and threading through her hair).

“Tell my boy I will take this one with me. Make sure you also tell him exactly what you hide among your prayers, girl.” Skadi paused, allowing the moment to increase, to the cold to become sharper and deadlier. “I will.”

The door closed on the Lady’s back – the winds screeching to a halt as glass was replaced by the thinnest layer of ice – but Jon barely noticed. His attention was drawn to Skadi once more, to the eyes who were really like his and so very close. Hers were beautiful though, like the silver pendants of Lady Stark’s that Robb had slipped away to show him. The unnaturalness in them had not disappeared. He rose a hand, expecting that illusion to fade the second he came closer. Slowly, ever so slowly. Lady Stark had made sure he understood one could not and should not touch others unwarranted. He knew contact, affection, but the sole woman he gave them to was old Nan, who was old and wise and not family so she could not hold him properly. The Lady stayed still, waiting patiently until his fingers touched her cheek.

It was cold. Icy cold.

“You are kind. You said you’re not… you are.”

His fingers touched the very edge of her lips (blue, light blue, almost no red to be found) as she smiled. It was not a nice smile. It was pretty – _ish_ – and it was amused but it did not feel nice, like when Lady Stark smiled down at Sansa. He half expected her to laugh out loud instead, as one of the men watching the boys tumble around in the training yard.

“Winter is not kind, boy,” she said abruptly. “You don’t need to lie.”

She was to him. That was all that mattered.

“I am taking you with me.” A million words, a million words ran through his mind but the most important was _no_ and _father_ and _brother_. Skadi seemed to hear them, as loudly as if they had been spoken. Her hand covered his lips. “I know you will miss them. But if I leave you here, she will pray again. She will send you to the back of her brood and hide you behind her children like you are nothing. Who else will defend the child against the sins of the father?”

Her arm steadied him against the furs cautiously, like so many times during the days before. Strongly. Nothing could take him from her, it seemed to say. Gods helped him, he leaned against her, feeling the soft warmth she exuded even though her skin was cold as the ice below the castle. It was so lovely to be held, to lean gently against a soft body.

“Do not worry, b—” Her voice stilled. She lost a moment staring down at him, as if she had not seen him before, tugging on his curls pensively. “I usually do not memorize you mortals. You are so many now, it is hard to keep track as you all keep dying. You will need a name. Boy is what she calls you.”

He frowned against her touch. The boy might not have an idea of what to think about leaving Winterfell but he was very sure what to feel about that suggestion.

“I have one,” he retorted. “It’s Jon.”

“Thiazi would be in bad taste,” Skadi continued as if she had not heard a word he had spoken. “I love my father but he was not the best role model a boy could choose. You would start kidnapping ladies the second my back was turned. There’s Njord. Hm. Njall?”

“Jon.”

“Jolgeir?”

“Jon.”

The amused edge made her smile look nicer.

“Jorund. I will take you back whenever you want. This is our home. You will come and go and she won’t be able to stop us. I promise you.”

“You do?”

“In word and blood, by the Godswood if that is your wish.”

The woman stood once more, covering herself in a fur shawl he had yet to notice until that moment. All the pretense of being a servant was well and completely destroyed. He didn’t know what to think, of her, what she could do, of leaving to begin with. But she had offered a home – ordered, more like – where he wouldn’t be measure against others who had been born more favored by the Gods. Wasn’t that good? Even though his father wouldn’t allow it, wasn’t it nice to be wanted?

“Are you my mother?” Jon asked slowly. Why else would she want him? “My real mother?”

Her smile lost the edge of amusement.

“I am now.”


	2. he could bury it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to say, I was absolutely floored with the response this story had. I honestly did not expect the welcome to such an odd idea and I sincerely thought the strange, disconnected text might draw readers away. That said, thank you very much to everyone who commented and kudos-ed (let's pretend it's an acceptable verb); it made me incredibly happy. This chapter was a bit more complicated to write since I had to juggle Ned and his perspective but I hope it is a good read.
> 
> Also, from everyone who asked if Catelyn would tell Ned, what made you think Skadi would give her the option to do otherwise? :)

**xxxXXXxxx**

The issue with peaceful times was that the smallest shift, the tiniest changed, sent one’s world crashing down. Eddard had not had any kind of warning. His mind had been lost in common worries, reviewing the same paperwork that covered his work desk every single day. During that time, none would bother him though, quite frankly, he often welcomed any pause. It was one of the reasons why he didn’t close his door or locked himself away. And one of the reasons why his wife entered without notice. Eddard rose his head, immediately frowning without truly knowing why. The situation by itself was odd but the state of his Lady wife was not much better.

“Cat? What is wrong? Did something happen?” He stood from his desk, his hand reaching out for her only to have his movement evaded.

“The woman in your bastard’s room.” Catelyn was shaking, hiccupping, tears which refused to fall steady on the edge of her eyes. Her hair, always so pristine and beautiful, fell around her in a red cloak, shadowing her features and doing little to hide her despair. “Is she his mother,” she hissed at him, making a grasp for his arms, fingers tightening upon them as if that alone would draw the truth from his lips. “Did you bring her to my house, Ned, to my Castle? Is it not enough that I must face this dishonor every day staring at me from his face?”

“The woman in Jon’s room…?” It was fair to say none of her words made much sense. When he had last visited his son, the only woman he had left behind had been family. And years had gone by without Catelyn catching a glimpse of her dark hair. Gods, please, tell him she had not, not after all those years… again, a movement to close was thwarted as Catelyn evaded him like one would evade a snake. “Skadi?”

“I don’t know her name! The woman in the black dress! The woman in the boy’s room! Who is she?” The word was testimony of her frazzled state. Catelyn did not usually censor herself with others but with him, she attempted to. It bothered him, she knew, it made him feel like she was pushing Jon aside, as if he had nothing to do with that family.  “… she threatened me. I asked who she was and what she was doing there and she,” Catelyn continued, lost in her own world. She released him, pacing within the confines of the room, her arms waving quickly purposeless, speaking more at him than to him. “Something about the Seven. She called herself the Stranger. A madwoman! Ned, who have you brought into our house? Is she the boy’s mother?”

Ned had thought this subject well and truly buried, hidden as he was behind his wife’s propriety which forbid her from speaking about what she perceived to be her weakness. Watching her staring at him tugged at his heart – even though she could not know it –  the pain drawn upon her features begging for him to finally confess the truth.

He could not. Jon would die if he was too weak to keep a secret. Five years had gone by. Just a few more and Jon would leave to foster, to hide away from Robert in the farthest place Ned could think of. And until then, the boy would have his brother’s friendship, his sister’s love and his father’s protection like he had had. All Ned had to do was to be strong.

The Lord pulled himself together, taking a hold of her wrists gently before she hurt him and herself in the process. It had been buried until that day.

He could bury it again.

“That was not what I sent her here to do.”

Ancestors help him. Eddard took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. It did not change the situation, of course. His wife was still in his arms, lost in despair and fear and his ancestor was still by the door, black-clad and impassive.

The Gods replied in the North. They did not reply as you wanted (or how you wanted or when you wanted). They replied as they felt like it, as the weather changed and their mood followed. Skadi, crossing the halls of Winterfell as if she had built it with her own hands (which was a possibility, in fact), was fickler than most. It was hard to see who she took to, he remembered his father saying as both watched the woman sitting by a side, her normally stern features softened in the warm light of the fires. She had liked Brandon, the exuberance and passion who reminded her so much of her father. She had loved little Benjen, who grabbed at her skirts and attempted to steal her bow when she faked distraction. She had loved Lyanna, so alike to her mother and distant ancestor.

It had been Skadi welcoming him home from the war. Arms steady, not a twitch, not a tear, not a scream of pain even though her lifeless progeny had been brought back to her in blood and ash. His strongest memory of that day had been standing by her in the empty courtyard, watching as the ashes were carried inside while rain drenched the rough stones. That day, it had seemed the world would never welcome sunlight again.

 _I told your father_ , she said covering each box of remains gently with furs, like a mother preparing her children to bed _, stay here where I can follow. I can look after you. I can protect you. Why do you pray if you don’t want your prayers answered?_

Inside Winterfell, inside the borders marked by snow, Starks were protected by the Old Goddess. And he loved her, how could he not, the being who was old and sure of herself and spoke both the things he needed to hear and those he quite clearly did not wished to. Ned nodded at the new arrival as he pulled his wife closer, sighing once more onto her hair. Perhaps the small gesture of affection would bring Catelyn back from whenever dark place she had walked into.

“Grandmother.” The body against his shuddered. “I thought I had asked you not to frighten my wife?”

As always, Skadi entered the room without permission or worry. The first comfortable seat she found, she carelessly occupied.

“Don’t be a bore, boy. She couldn’t see me before last night,” the black-haired woman said, resting her cheek against a closed fist. “How I was I to know she would take offence to anyone taking care a sick child?” Her abnormal silver eyes did not move from the picture the Lords of Winterfell did, standing in the middle of an empty room and holding onto to each other, not in affection, but to keep angry words from further escalating. The open door she had left behind her mocked him. Was there anyone else who could still make him feel like this, annoyed and upset as when his father discarded his opinions or suggestions?

“That’s her,” Catelyn interrupted, an angry finger pointing at the other woman. “That’s the woman. Tell me, Ned! What is going on here?”

Skadi did not react. Gods above, he finally realized, this event was something far worse than mistaken identity or misplaced worry. His grandmother was angry. He could almost see it, tightly held within, slowly being fed and watered, allowed to simmer right beneath her skin. Outside, winds howled against the stone walls, sliding against the old battlements as if they wished to crush everything inside it until only rubble remained. He remembered this. This gaze. This danger. It had colored her countenance as father informed her Lyanna would marry into the other side of Westeros.

“I did not come here to listen to her histrionics, Eddard.”

Ned had been dropped headfirst into a battleground, with no enemy or ally and lacking all information. Taking a moment to breathe deeply, the Lord attempted to organize his thoughts. He needed only to explain something simple, so simple it was part of his very existence, and then, perhaps he would be able to erase the insult which was making Skadi’s eyes cast shadows upon her expression and her hands clench into fists, as if searching for something to hold. Something sharp and perhaps deadly.

“Catelyn, I will need you to listen. It might be hard to understand but…” How could one explain the sky above their heads? The sunlight every morning? It was nature, it was the wind, it was the air in his lungs. The Supernatural walked hand in hand within the walls of Winterfell and every inhabitant knew this.

“I did not come here to listen to your explanations over my presence either,” the Goddess’ words broke through his half-drawn explanation, again, caring little of the way she was trampling over his peace.

“This is my fault,” was his strained response. “I need to fix it.”

Skadi’s expression was the very definition of reproach. “Many things are your fault, including your ability to find the most complicated solution for every subject.” Before Ned could react, she was by his side, lowering herself to the other woman’s eyeline. He felt Catelyn move back against him, trying to release herself from his hold and flee. She was shaking once more, eyes moving from side to side searching for a way to escape. Ned had never seen her so deeply afraid.

“I did not give birth to that boy,” Skadi declared.

The truth was like a melody. It filled her tongue and coated her words; it seeped into every sound, simple and blunt like only honesty could be and yet, there was something more woven within. None could doubt her words, he felt with every breath entering his lungs. Skadi could have described the sky as green and the stars as blue and he would still believe every sound.

The wording bothered him though.

Catelyn collapsed against him as her breathing returned onto a calmer state. A moment before it had seemed her heart had wanted to leave her body, what spell had broken that fear leaving such calm behind?

“There. That is fixed.”

Without further comment, the black-haired woman returned to her previous seat, abandoning the couple to their absent affection. But she did not leave, she did not return to Jon’s room where she had spent the last couple of weeks. In fact, he had seldom seen her so interested; her focused gaze so intent, it could have flayed a lesser man alive. Ned lowered his attention to Catelyn, cautiously drawing herself together, patting the dust from her dress, breathe in, breathe out as her countenance became steady once more.

His Lady carefully did not look up.

His Goddess carefully did not look away.

Skadi waved a hand in the direction of the door she had not bothered with. No air moved, no wind, but the structure banged closed, shaking against its hinges.

“I can force you,” she declared, still staring at the younger woman in front of her. Her eyes had gained a dangerous edge, one Ned had not seen for many years. Ever since a tourney, a stolen child and two murdered lords amongst red flames. “You will speak of your own volition or I will drag it out of you, word for word.”

“Grandmother, you are bypassing all limits.”

Another sharp wave. The bookcase by his side smashed against the wall behind it. Shelves fell upon the floor, littering the stone with half-ripped books and lost pages.

“Eddard, I’m not speaking to you. Be quiet.” She would never hurt him. She would never. He knew she would never. Yet his throat clogged in fear, a feeling so deep and primal, the man almost stepped back. His hand was held in front of him as his body partially shielded Catelyn’s. Skadi shook her head slowly (disappointed, disappointed beyond words), tendrils of dark hair dancing around her skin on an unseen breeze. “Tell him the truth. Tell him every word you have spoken, time and time again thinking only your Gods would hear.”

Catelyn’s lips pressed together, both arms crossed over her chest as if that alone would protect her against whatever was taking place.

“I did not think it would happen!”

“Oh?” Skadi raised an eyebrow, in a typical mocking gesture which was extremely atypical for _her_. “Is that how the South lives? Playing with the unknown and expecting it not to respond? One does not pray without expecting a response, girl. One does not go to a cliff and shout only to leave without the sound of echo. You spoke and you believed. That is the strength of prayer. The thought, a soul giving itself upon an altar for one pure desire. Tell him the truth.”

“I didn’t want it to happen!”

That sentence was told to him, begging to him, but Ned could not make any judgement of value without understanding what the argument was about. He looked from woman to woman, from the fearful and tearful to the angered by a side. If Skadi was moved by his Lady’s tears, nothing in her expression showed it. There was disgust in her voice instead, a soft hiss of danger carving the woman’s sins in his ears so he could not, for once, ignore them.

“I believe you didn’t expect it to happen,” the Goddess retorted. “Especially not in this manner. A disease is different, isn’t it? Than to have him falling somewhere and not returning. Than to have him disappear in the early fogs. It is different when it is slow and painful. When you’re forced to see a child suffering through pain and strife for your ridiculous shame.”

Her voice did not raise in volume. It did not need to, covered as it was in shadows and old magic. The pretense of indolence had disappeared from its owner to be replaced with the same tight, tense feeling that preceded the beginning of a battle.

“I said _speak_ ,” she ordered as the air inside became suffocating, picked up strength and power, bore upon his body until his limbs were useless shadows of their usual state. Her wishes were on the wind, her decrees, her strength. Ned could not move. “Speak now. Or I _swear_ , the next time you see your firstborn, he will be old and grey with children of his own.”

Catelyn coughed suddenly. Tears of fear and pain slid down her as she held her pale throat, scratching at the skin, trying to bury her fingers to get at the feeling within. The color which she had regained in the previous moments faded once more, bloodless and sallow as the statues keeping watch in the crypts.

“Grandmother!” Silver eyes did not pay him attention. She was his grandmother, she was the woman who had held him, impassive and calm walking through Winterfell’s halls. She was also a Goddess, she was an old God, vengeful and prone to anger like the old stories said. Ned had forgotten! Kind as she was towards him, loving, in her own manner, he had forgotten the snake distilling venom onto a living man because he had dared to steal what she had loved the most. _The earthquakes sound every time a drop falls and the screams of pain are music to her,_ old Nan sang in his memory. “Skadi, please, I beg of you to stop!”

She would stop for the truth or death and nothing else.

“Catelyn, please tell me. It will be alright, I promise you. Nothing you have said or done will drive me away. Please speak.”

Never had he seen that gaze upon his wife’s face, a mix of tortured pain and tortured regret.

“I asked the Stranger’s to come for the boy,” she finally whispered. “I asked him for him to be taken away. I begged for his death.”

Skadi’s hands opened and she was upon him without pause, not giving him a chance to assimilate that his wife, the woman he had lived by for the past five years, had spent her prayers asking for a child’s life. His child’s life.

“Your webs, boy, your _damned webs_ ,” she yelled, like the cadence of a funeral pyre, _your sins, your damned sins_. “You could have raised him here, be open, be honest. You could have trusted our walls to keep that King of yours out. He has no dragons, no fire to push me away! His God is as much of a fool as he is. No one would have walked inside our borders without my say so. But you loved him, that buffoon who killed your sister. So you weaved, hid behind it; fooled everyone, fooled your wife, fooled the boy. I say enough!.”

It was not easy! It was not as easy as she made it seem! For her, to rally in front of a child was simple. For her, who did not had to deal with the consequences and two bloodied children lying on red cloaks. Eddard saw his gaze reflected upon hers and felt ashamed of his very thoughts. Of course, she did – _that day and the heavy rain upon his shoulders_ – of course she knew. Her disappointment hurt as a physical wound. Humans and their games, he could read in her expression, mortals and their games, pushing aside what mattered the most.

“I love him,” he declared lowly, feeling so much like the child she had once known. “What else could I do to keep him?” What was right and what was wrong in this web of lies of his?

A last look. That was all the response Skadi gave him before she turned on her back and left the room. The silence she left behind was as heavy as the weight in his heart, watching the careful façade of his life being crumbled into nothing. Only her steps, quick and angered, echoed down the hall until, even they, faded into nothing, leaving him alone with his restless thoughts.

“Ned…”

Catelyn’s voice jerked him onto reality He didn’t know what to say to her either. It was horrible, heartbreaking… he understood that it had been a bad situation for her, one that he had created in order to protect Jon, but never in his wildest dreams would he think that his wife would passively work towards his boy’s death. He was an innocent. A good boy, who did his best, who loved his brother and sister, who tried and tried and tried again for those around to love him (because the one person he couldn’t have, wouldn’t). He was a child. Frail and sick against the white sheets, coughing as his life drained away from a sickness Ned couldn’t protect him from. Like his mother, Gods, so much like his mother, with his grey eyes and love for life.

“Ned. Ned, please,” Catelyn murmured, tips of her fingers touching his hand very lightly. Did he look like Skadi then, vengeful and furious? He was sure he didn’t. He was just… empty. Ned opened his lips to say something – anything that would soften the wounds – but whatever words he could have spoken were clipped by the sound of lightning ripping against the castle walls. The sound was deafening, a loud crash of broken stone, smashed wood and the wrath of the Gods.

“Grandmother.”

Turning from his wife, he ran towards the hallway, crossing the halls while barely registering everyone accompanying him. There were servants, old and new, praying under breath as they searched for loved ones, all with fear spread upon their faces and silent questions at the tip of their tongues. Robb crossed his path, large blue eyes worried and fearful, curling into his pelts as if that would keep him safe. Ned did not think before pulling the boy onto his arms and running forward. This was not dangerous, the world told him, there were Starks in Winterfell and no Stark should ever be hurt behind its walls. That was normal, that was expected, _even though_ , his traitorous mind continued without requesting permission, His Snow Lady was enraged. All the crowd, himself included, moved as one tight mass towards the courtyard, converging onto the fiery light which was now consuming the gardens.

The Shrine to the Seven was destroyed. Where it had once stood, black stone covered the floor, smashed, splintered, piece by piece by piece by ice and snow alike. The wooden foundations were gnawed on, fragments littering the frozen floor where ash and revolved earth were not, while every statue, every single figure of the Southern Gods was shattered beyond recognition. It had not been an accident. It was a message. Skadi had been tolerant up to the point where her blood had been harmed and, after that, all that tolerance had gone up in fire and smoke. Above their heads, heavy clouds danced around the eye of the storm, drenching the fields in snow and water as lightning heralded the danger which could still come.

“They are not welcome here.” It was a Queen’s edict, branded in law and etched in stone. “Inform her.”

Robb was taken from his arms gently and cuddled onto a welcoming hold. His red head immediately rested against Skadi’s black tresses, his small arms tightening around her neck with practiced ease. Her pleased smile belied the destruction above, inside, all around them.

“Did you have to do this?”

To break his life apart, to break his marriage, to force his wife to confess her greatest of sins when she so clearly regretted every word she had spoken to those greater than them?

There was a hint of kindness, a hint of gentleness surrounding the Goddess now that her fury had run dry, leaving only debris in her wake. She patted his face, three fingers slowly sliding down his cheek. Her lips, as they touched his forehead, seemed to brand it, a feeling akin to dipping his hand deep into the waters of the Godswood.

“Who would protect the child from the sins of the father?” She whispered.


	3. in the honesty of liars.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Being sick was upsetting. Being healthy – _healthier_ , the Maester would correct – and still forced to keep inside as to not unravel all the improvement was proving to be far more than Jon could handle. He had tried sneaking out of his room _six times_. Every single time, someone had caught him and brought him back. Every single time, Skadi had later entered the room, calm and serious, and informed him that sadly, he would have to keep to his bed for one more day. Wasn’t it a shame?

Jon was beginning to suspect she was mocking him.

It didn’t make him stop wanting to leave though. Two weeks had passed since the argument he had witnessed between the Lady of the Castle and Skadi and, ever since, the Keep had been caught in a silent rebellion. It all started with the falling of the Sept. _It had no warning_ , the servant who had passed by to clear his clothes told him, _everything had seemed fine and then, suddenly, it was like the Earth itself had rebelled against the house of the Seven_. Furthermore, old Nan told him late that morning, balancing his breakfast on top of a small pile of clothing, _it was a sure sign the Gods were angry_. The falling of the structure could have been an accident but the destruction of everything it contained? The images of the southern divinities? How about the way the sky had rumbled for two days and two nights, heavy with rain and promising further punishment? Even the family inside the Keep seemed to suffer from whatever ill will had swept through the Keep. Robb had fled his caretaker the night before, slipping underneath the covers of Jon’s bed to sleep by his side. The Lord and Lady were feuding, _they were really angry_ , his brother told him under the cover of darkness, they hadn’t stopped fighting except to welcome his brother into the room and even that frail peace didn’t last.

Jon didn’t know what was going on or what why it was taking place. Only that there were dire consequences because it. If he had to be honest, gossip wasn’t nearly as fun or informative as the servants said it was. It was upsetting to only be fed the smallest crumbs of information by his bedside, watching as everyone else went about their day.

His attention was rivetted away from the small book the Maester had left him – because of course neither father or Skadi would have any kind of problem with him working during bedrest. The sound of fast footfalls echoed down the hall in the direction of his room. With relish, the boy placed the work aside just in time for his brother to run inside.

“You need to tell her! I’m coming too!”

Robb slammed the door behind him, tugging his shoes off before jumping on the bed. He looked like a puppy, all of him nervous energy and tension. And worried. Jon looked at his brother, at the way his eyes darted from place to place while his hands tightened on his over the blankets.

“What?” Jon blurted out. “Where? What are you talking about?”

“Father told me that Skadi told him that she told you she was taking you when she goes north. She’s going north in a week! She can’t take you with her without me. I’m not letting her!”  A surge of emotion filled the boy’s body. Skadi was leaving! And she was taking him with her? Was that a good thing? It should be; it meant she did not jest when she said she wanted him. But, was his father letting her? Did he not want him?

Then again, the boy reflected reasonably, the woman might have not really asked for permission. Jon had noticed – more than once - that the black-haired lady didn’t exactly ask for things. She either did it herself or flattened whatever was in her path. If she wanted him to leave, it was likely he would do so, whether with permission or not. And that did mean leaving his brother behind. Would she dare to bring both sons of Lord Stark against his wishes?

Jon’s mind turned and turned as the line of thought continued and broke into countless paths. Maybe Skadi was right; maybe he wasn’t healthy just yet.

“So you ask her,” Robb continued, dashing through his inner monologue, which, if he wanted to honest, was possible the best thing he could do. “I can go with you too! I can be useful.”

Robb had father and had his mother. He had a sister and a Keep that would be his own once he reached the appropriate age. Couldn’t he let Skadi be just a little his? As soon as that thought was formed, Jon felt his face heat up in shame, almost as if the fever had come back. When had he become this selfish, to feel like he could claim another person for himself?

Robb raised his hand against his cheek, feeling the warmer skin, and frowned.

“You are alright, aren’t you?” He asked worriedly. “Skadi said so.”

Hey, she had told him otherwise! The skiving _liar_!

“I’m fine.” Jon patted his brother’s hand away, trying to push aside all selfish thoughts. Robb wanted to go with him. That was a _good_ thing! They could go on adventures and travel north and see the wildings or meet the Brothers up at the wall! They could learn by doing, instead of just listening to the Maester’s lessons. That was a nice idea! “You think father will allow it?”

“I don’t think Skadi asks for permission much,” Robb replied, echoing his earlier conclusion. The redheaded boy sat down more properly, tucking his feet underneath the blankets. Absently, he began tugging at one of the holes in the blanket, making it large enough to poke a finger through. “She argued with father. Well. Not really argued. She just spoke really quietly.”

“You listened through the door.”

Robb’s expression was so guilty; it almost mirrored his.

“I think she knew it. She patted my head when she came out.”

Jon waited patiently – a whole two minutes – for more information to be forthcoming. When his brother didn’t bother to continue, he poked him on the foot. Then on the elbow. And a final poke on the forehead. Robb could not understand what it was like to sit inside that closed room, watching patiently while everyone around him made choices about his life. While the world around them shifted like it had suddenly decided to go mad. It was _annoying_ him. He almost preferred when most ignored him.

Sort of.

“Father called her Grandmother,” Robb confessed.

“Grandmother?” That made no sense! “Grandmother is dead, isn’t she?”

“Right? That’s what I thought!” His energy returned like it had never disappeared, a string of words leaving his lips, picking up speed up as it went along. “He said he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to send you with her. That he wasn’t sure everything would go well. Then Skadi said she raised a couple of you. Of us? I didn’t really understand that part… but she did say she knew what she was doing. And then father said that he could raise us just fine.”

The tone in his brother’s voice told Jon that he agreed with every word in that last sentence.

“And she didn’t argue about it. She said… she said,” Robb scrunched up his nose. “Fathers should do the best for their children. It is their promise when they’re brought into the world. And that mother…”

The rest of his thought made Robb look down at his fingers, watching carefully as he tugged them back and forth. It was his go-to movement when deeply upset. Jon opened his lips so say something, anything, maybe something nice about Lady Stark! She was a nice person to most people after all… just not with him. She could be kind and sweet but never with him.

Maybe that was why the words choked on his throat and refused to be spoken, a poisonous lie which would not pass through his lips.

Robb didn’t notice, lost as he was in his own mind. “Can you be a good person if you do bad things?” He asked instead.

The sadness in his brother’s voice was almost palpable on the stuffy air of the sick room. “She doesn’t do bad things,” Jon whispered softly.

Liar, liar, _liar._

"But she doesn’t do good things to _you_!” Robb shouted over his horrible defense. “She doesn’t sing to you or hug you. She didn’t stay with you while you were sick even though father was so worried. That’s not! Those are not good things! She told me I should always be generous but then she’s not! She lied to me!”

Disregarding that he was effectively climbing over him, Robb tugged himself closer until he was sitting right by his side, arm over his shoulder tightening until it was almost painful. But it was a nice pain. It told him that Robb understood, even if he didn’t say things sometimes because it was his mother. Robb loved him.

Everything, Jon vowed silently, lowering his head so it would lean against his brother’s, he would always share everything with his brother. He could not give in into jealousy. It wasn’t right otherwise. It wasn’t _honorable_.

A moment after and the door of his room opened once more, announcing his father’s entrance. He looked worn, a bit tired like he had not been sleeping well and even a little upset. Jon pushed himself even closer to Robb. It wasn’t that he had done something wrong – he was certain he hadn’t done anything in the past weeks bar eating and sleeping – but father seemed too worried. There was an aura of seriousness around him, like a thoughtful conversation just waiting to happen. And every time it had in the past, Jon had not left happily.

“Exactly why is there so much screaming coming from here? I thought you were supposed to be resting, Jon?”

“I’m going with Jon!”

Robb was brave. A bit foolish but brave. Jon was sure father didn’t expect the proclamation because instead of the automatic ‘no’ both boys expected, the Lord of Winterfell stood silent for a long moment, staring at his eldest like he had never seen him before. Was that a sigh? Was father _sighing_?

That, more than anything, spelled how wrong Winterfell was.

Father sat by the foot of the bed, pushing aside small feet before giving them the full weight of his gaze. Jon felt himself slipping in front of his brother, moving his arm so it would make him less of a target. His brave, wonderful silly brother, who didn’t measure his words because, more often than not, he didn’t have to. Jon was different. Jon knew some of the ugly parts of the world.

“You are not going anywhere, Robb,” Eddard decreed. “And we need to speak about your newfound need to listen behind closed doors. If you want to keep from being found, you should not whisper back replies through the door.”

His brother was a fool.

“Skadi asked if I was treated the same way as Jon!” Robb declared.

“And she certainly didn’t require you to reply.”

“A question is to be replied to! You said so!” Gods help him, his brother was _really_ a fool.

“Not when it’s not asked to you,” Father retorted. “And you should not use my words like a weapon.”

“Why not? You do!”

Jon could see the migraine running through his father’s head from a mile away.

“You are not going anywhere, Robb!”

“Then Jon’s not going either!” Robb’s voice rose in tone with his distress. “Mother can’t make him leave! I won’t let her!”

There was a long uncomfortable pause between the three males, accentuated by the tiny fingers digging onto his stomach, pushing him tightly onto Robb until there was no space between brother and brother.

Jon felt little tears pricking at his eyes, like small ants biting along his skin. He could not cry. He would not cry. Even if those words had crossed his skin and smashed onto his heart with all the strength of a wayward chariot. Had he focused on anything but the feeling of protection, he would have seen confusion in his father’s expression; a mixture of sorrow and happiness, so confusing one could not discern which was stronger. The reasons behind it were not any clearer.

“I know you are upset at your mother but she is not to blame for Jon’s journey.”

Grownups lied so much. Jon had never noticed. To protect, they would say, because they did not wish to explain, as a small jest. They wrapped their words in the trust their children held in them and slipped untruths in every breath. Father couldn’t say such a thing to _him_ and mean it! He had lived through Lady Stark’s gazes and harsh words. He had seen her sneer at his presence and attempt to keep his siblings from him. No one had ever cared. No one had ever stopped her. None but Skadi.

“Skadi is a good person. If she believes she can show Jon a new way of life, I am sure she knows best.” Jon’s head twisted slightly to the side, grey eyes meeting his father’s. Could there also be a lie in there somewhere, coated gently in a manner that made it more palatable? “Now leave, please.”

Robb opened his mouth to speak. Father raised a hand. There was a silent battle of wills between the two Starks and even Jon did not wonder about who the victor would be. Children did not win. And if there was anyone his brother couldn’t pull rank with, it was their father. Robb’s footfall stomped all throughout the hall until it could not be heard anymore.

Without the protection of other boy, Jon found his father’s attention heavy on his shoulders.

“Are you angry at me?” Because it felt like it. It truly did.

“No!” Disbelief rang through the man’s voice. “No, of course not. Why should I be? You did nothing wrong.”

Father’s grey eyes were on him, warm and kind, when he moved to take Robb’s place and wrap his arm around his shoulders. Nothing in the world could get to him then. In his arms, there were no bastards. Lady Stark did not hate him. Servants did not wonder if helping him would make someone angry. There and then, everything was alright with his world. Maybe he needed that reassurance as his steady world hanged on the edge of a precipice.

“You, of all people,” his father whispered, kissing his hair gently. “Did nothing wrong. I just need to speak to you.”

He was in no hurry to do so though. His breathing was the only sound in Jon’s ears, soft, as if he was measuring every word before speaking it.

“I need you to understand something before you accept to leave,” he finally stated. “Listen to me carefully, yes?” What little he could see from his father’s expression was worried. It reminded him of the very beginning of his sickness when he appeared ready to break every time Jon coughed. “Skadi is not a normal person, Jon,” father continued gently. “I’m sure you noticed?”

She was kind, Jon knew, and she was strong – _and the wind liked her_ , his mind silently added, retelling a story that could not be real. She had made Lady Stark silent with one word, almost like magic, almost like she knew that every word his stepmother would utter could harm him easily. And her hands, always gentle when near him, were calloused and scarred like she had spent her whole days working the fields.

“She loves us but she doesn’t see the world as we do,” Eddard continued, making no attempt at explaining what _that_ meant. “If you leave with her, it is possible that you will be in danger in some point or another.”

Danger? Skadi wasn’t dangerous!

“Do you want me to stay instead of going with her?” Jon questioned, almost bluntly. Without realizing it, he started repeating Robb’s earlier gestures, fiddling with a broken thread of his blanket.

“Of course, I do! You are my son. Nothing will ever change that.” His head rested on his father’s chest, close enough to hear the steady beating of his heart. “The world could change from day to night and would love you just the same. You are mine.”

But he didn’t feel his, sometimes. _And that one’s the bastard_ , resounded in his mind like an echo of long lost insults, _that one is the shame_.

“Skadi said she is my mother now,” he confessed softly.

 “If she says that, then you have no reason to disbelieve it. Skadi is a woman of her word.”

“But she’s not, is she?” The boy pressed further. “My mother?”

The momentary look of disgust on his father’s face was comical and Jon would have laughed in any other moment but that trace of hope he had harbored had died again. He tugged his legs closer, moving to make himself as small as possible in his father’s arms before hugging them tightly. Of course, she wasn’t. He was silly for hoping. That his real mother had come back for him.

Father’s finger chucked his chin.

“If she says she is, then she is,” he declared. “Our blood and hers are the same. You don’t need to give birth to a boy to love him. You just need to raise him, day by day, and be proud of the man he will one day become.”

He paused, moving away from Jon and sitting across him once more. That was shame on his expression as well, the boy thought, shame and pain. Did father feel them often as well? Did he hate them, as Jon did? Did he also take them out at night when none could see him, turning them again and again in his mind because, come the day, he would have to hide them again?

“I know why she’s taking you,” father acknowledged. “I should have seen it earlier. I thought, if I gave Cat time, she would understand that you are not to blame. That I was. I thought she would eventually see you as the child you are instead of an offence. I thought so many things. And Skadi, as per usual, ran right through them.” He sounded as upset about it as Robb had been for being sent away. “I see what she sees. But I can do better. I can fix this, if given the chance.”

It was not the apology that Jon had never expected. But it was a promise Eddard would not look elsewhere this time, not after being shown exactly what had taken place inside his home. It was the offer of a second option, one where Winterfell would remain his house and his family would still be his family.

His hand rested on his head, heavy and kind. “She won’t take you from me unless you ask. Think about that.”

Those words dumped at his feet, Eddard rose from the small bed. With the barest of hesitation, he leaned towards the boy and kissed his forehead, before turning on his place and walking outside. Jon didn’t notice more than his heavy steps as the door closed at his back. Why were people acting like this? Come by, drop information and run away before helping him to make sense of it. Everyone, from his brother to Skadi, even to Lady Stark, were taking their sweet time in making no actual sense.

Silently, Jon tugged back the blankets and stood up, cold feet upon the old stone. Dark spots covered his vision for a brief moment, gripping the thick wooden headboard with trembling fingers as to not fall behind once more. Soon enough, he was breathing deeply and focusing on the path ahead; any path that would lead him away from those four walls. No one stopped him. For the past days, it had seemed that he could not put a finger outside his door without someone turning him right back. But now that he wanted aid, servants and guards alike allowed him to pass with barely a look or a question. They were all being useless too!

His feet chose the path for him. Step by step through the Castle, neither soul or shadow stopped him. Before long, Jon found himself standing by the large tree in the Godswood. Wind whispered into his ears, rustling the newly grown leaves on the trees above, floating traces of the cold earth onto the air. If there was a place which encompassed what home was to him, it was that clearing, with its softly running water and the scent of greenery in the air. It was the beginning of the Starks, where the Old Gods heard their prayers. And even though he was a Snow, nothing could keep him from that place.

Minutes passed. Hours, perhaps. He could not know. But eventually, Jon felt a light pressure on his head.

When he looked up, Skadi did not return his gaze. Her fingers continued their slow motion, absently toying with his hair as her head tipped backwards, long tresses moving freely in the dusky breeze. Grey eyes watched the leaves of the tree above them like they contained all the answers in the world.

“This is the wrong place to hide from me.”

The odd comment was lost in between his thoughts, the soft touch of the tree bark underneath his fingers which was solid and consistent. Everything seemed so volatile, so hard to keep track of. He didn’t know what do or what to say first. What was she? Was she really his grandmother? Who was she? Where were they going and why? He didn’t know so _much_. He didn’t know Skadi. He didn’t know what she was or who she was to him – other than nice and caring and _there_. He didn’t know where she was going to take him or why father was accepting it so readily. It was too much for a boy like him to understand. And, if he wanted to be honest, it wasn’t like his understanding would change anything, would it? His world was run by older men. They said the choice was his but was it really?

“I’m still a bastard, aren’t I?” He asked, not truly expecting a response. “I’m still a Snow.”

“Does that matter?”

Jon shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t know. Everyone kept telling him it was. From his Father’s wife to the newest servant, there were only pointed fingers for some betrayal he had not performed.

“My blood is yours,” the Lady continued, flutter of dark skirts around her as she stood by his side, impossibly tall, untouchable never mind the caress still running through his hair. “A slave could have borne you. A thief could have. A bandit. And you would still be mine. You are as mine as if I had carried you inside me.” Skadi opened her hand in front of him, thin long fingers, scarred and calloused, covered in small white lines. His seemed so very frail against it. “Change your name, if you want. Ignore it, if you want. It only spells where you came from, not where you are going.”

“And where are we going?”

Her hand shifted to her previous caress, up and down, up and down, and her eyes looked to the tree and through it, so far away that Jon could almost believe her to be asleep and dreaming.

“Somewhere different. Where they will take a good long look at what you do before of noticing what you are not.” She lowered herself to the floor so she stood at his level. Grey, grey and a silver shine that his eyes did not have framed by dark hair and dark clothes on fair skin. Jon could not tell how old she was. There were soft lines on her skin, a long scar crossing from her ear, down her neck, losing itself inside her dress but every else was smooth as newborn snow. Her hands encircled his face, tugging him forward until his forehead was against hers.

It was so cold. It was so gentle.

“You will be good,” her voice intoned, as if merely speaking the words aloud would draw the future she saw into stone. “You will be strong and mighty and I will have you be whatever you desire to be.”

Jon savored every word. Try as he might, he did not feel a single lie.

“Let us go back.”

Jon looked up at the woman, straightening once more, now with leaves and earth glued to her dress. She was asking him to follow her. He would be leaving his home behind and be an unknown in another land. Where he knew no one but Skadi, who was odd and promised to give him a better life than the shadows of his siblings. He didn’t know where it would lead – he didn’t understand where it would – but maybe it wouldn’t be bad? The unknown held more stories than the walls of a Castle, right?

The boy raised his eyes to hers. She was staring back. Waiting. Her hand was a heavy weight on his shoulder but comforting, familiar. It was fine to be afraid, right? Swallowing tightly, he nodded. He would do this and he would this right.

Carefully, Jon Snow slipped his hand into hers, feeling the scarred skin fit comfortably against his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you to everyone who is following this. I'm still amazed at it. I do ask that you all have a little patience. I am writing as fast as possible but unfortunately I also have to write a tremendous among of work-related documents that burn me out from even looking at a word document. Hopefully you have liked this chapter as well.


	4. three days till summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So no, the story is not abandoned. Unfortunately, writer's block combined with a large amount of formal writing have been pushing me away from it. Both scenes were rewritten several times before I thought they were acceptable. Hopefully they are. Thanks for the support, as always.

**xxxXXXxxx**

 

That week had taught Robb several things about his new relative. She was apparently about to steal his brother from him, what else could he do except following her around until he had enough information to evaluate her reliability? Per his observations, Skadi did not have a fixed position in the Castle. She lived there, yes, and yet she did not seem to work there? Or have a task, like father or mother did? The redhaired boy had seen her entering rooms where none wandered, go through the kitchens as if the hustle and bustle did not touch her. He had seen her sit by his father’s side in the long table of the Great Hall, caring little for mother’s fearful gaze flitting around her form like she could not focus on the dark-haired woman for long.

She also spent a good amount of time with little Sansa.

“I won’t be here as much for her, my boy,” she declared when she noticed him following her into the baby’s room. “And neither will Jon. You will have to take our place.”

With those words, Skadi prodded him onto a chair and placed the baby on his arms. A pat on his head and she was off, doing whatever she did when he wasn’t able to follow her – and he had tried, he and Jon, running through the ramparts in search of her figure only to realize that the door she had passed through lead only to a closed room or a darkened hallway. Magic, Robb had whispered, maybe she was magic. Or maybe she knew the Castle better than a couple of five-year olds, Jon had replied, crossing his arms in a caricature of their father’s manner. 

Not everyone in the Castle spoke with Skadi, the boys noticed. Some would actually avoid her, going as far as to change direction if she came down the hall, while others would pass by her as if she was nothing more than a piece of furniture. Others, like old Nan, would bow their heads, speak a few words, give her small trinkets or food before walking away. Skadi never rejected those gifts. Big or small, the items could be eventually found decorating cabinets or tables; some she added to her dress or weaved into her black hair. None was thrown out. It was odd. She was odd. _Everything_ about her was odd.

“Are you going to stare long?”

Skadi stood next to the weirwood tree, right at the center of the Godswood. Her eyes were closed, her forehead resting against the bark and her breathing, _in, out, in, out_ could be heard as solidly as the wind among the trees. She could be hugging it, the child realized, nails digging against the bark as the carved features rested against her breast. For a little while, the face of the tree didn’t seem to be crying. Robb rubbed his eyes, blinking repeatedly. Sunlight, he concluded. It was either the sunlight or sleep making him imagine things because the wooden features of the tree were just as sad, just as enigmatic as ever. He shouldn’t daydream.

Robb stepped forward, cringing at the sound his booted feet did against the newly grown grass. Against the soft sound of the leaves on the wind and Skadi’s breathing, everything else seemed as loud as the bells of the Sept.

“You want to speak to me. Well then,” the elder continued, pushing herself away from the tree. The branches crowed above her, large shadows melding into the tendrils of her black hair. “Speak.”

It was harder than he had thought. Unlike most people that faced him, Skadi gave him his whole undivided attention. It was a little scary. Like every single word he spoke would be judged.

“I can protect Jon.”

From mother, who could not look at him for longer than a moment before drawing her eyes away. From that little turn of her lips, that disgust, when she seemed so sickened by Jon’s very presence. From father who looked down at Jon with love and pity even though he should be looking at Catelyn with anger. How could he understand his mother when he couldn’t understand his own son? It wasn’t fair. But Robb could make it fair. He could make them understand. He could fight!

“I can protect him,” he reiterated, as if repetition would give more strength to his argument than his foot, stomping on the ground. “Mother will listen to me!”

But she hadn’t listened until then, had she, whispered a small part of his mind. Oh, he had asked. He had commented. He had requested. And every time she had said yes, he had turned his back and mother had acted in the exact same manner. He was a child, she would say, he did not understand what it was to have a wound so deep you would trample the world to see it covered.

She was wrong! Even little boys understood pain; like the one he saw every time he started at Jon. If they couldn’t see this, he would make them see.

The woman did not reply to his mental argument – though, that wasn’t a surprise, now was it? But the words she spoke were worse than any rebuttal she might have said. “If you ask him to stay,” Skadi stated lowly, crossing her arms over her chest as she laid back against the dark bark. Her features were Jon’s – were father’s – made female and stone and merciless. “He will obey. I won’t allow it.”

Obey? What did she mean obey? He didn’t order Jon! Right? Right…? He was so sure… Robb stared down at his feet, little fists closing by his side. She had to be wrong. Jon was his brother and he loved him so. He was his companion, his friend, the major part of his world. When he raised his eyes, she was still observing him, placid and calm as if she could hear his every thought. He was an open book to her. A little book, barely written, with a little shame staining the corner of every page.

“You are harming me by taking him away,” Robb whispered. “Do you only care for him? What about father? What about me?”

“It is a harm you will both survive.”

Tears prickled his eyes, tiny needles he could not blink away as much as he wished. What if he cried? What if he begged her? What if he said that he didn’t know how he would live without Jon by his side, every second, every moment of every day? Would she listen? It was the truth and she seemed to appreciate the truth.

“Please.” When had he walked forward? Robb didn’t know. His hand had gripped the fabric of her dress though, the deceptively soft tissue scratching against his skin. She was tall. She was so tall. She was above and beyond mercy and no word seemed to reach her. “Please don’t take him from me.”

Everyone always gave Robb what he asked. Discipline, he had that, but sometimes he only had to look at his mother or whisper and he would be gifted whatever necessary. It was part of his world. Yet, as he looked at Skadi, he could not feel any wish to bend to his whims. Her features had not broken an inch, her arms had not moved to embrace him, nothing, nothing, _nothing_ and he would not move her, he would not stop her, she would just do whatever she wanted!

Her arms unwound as the woman lowered herself to his level. Her eyes were silver pools, the dark waters of the godswood as the moonlight touched them. “It has been ages since I have heard my children whine at me and actually followed their demands. Your father is being too permissive.” A shiver ran through his body as his chin was tugged between two claws; delicately, strong enough to break if he moved. “I have always wondered,” she continued softly. “Why do you think we care about your wishes? Even you, my little boys. You are so few, so short. I blink and you fade from my sight. Why should I obey _you_?”

 _What_? He didn’t murmur the word out loud but he felt he didn’t need to. After all, Skadi had made _no sense_. The boy stared up at her from between her fingers, trying faintly to push himself away as he expected her to realize she was assaulting the heir of Winterfell. Sort of. Her sharp eyes moved up and down his features, as a sharp nail scratched at his skin. Close as he was, Robb could feel the exact moment when the mildness she had displayed until then faded into awareness.

“Grandmother?”

Skadi touched his cheek with her free hand, dragging her fingers down before staring at the tips as if they contained a mystery she could not understand. Her skin was cold. Cold as the fiercest winter night, cold as the thickest snow, cold until it seemed to leach all color from her pallor and she could be confused with one of the various statues of the crypts. And her frown. She was frowning so, deeply upset. Robb battled the urge to caress her cheek in return. It bothered him to see her so, even though until that moment she had done little more than upset _him_.

“You are sweating,” she disapproved.

Her lips pressed tightly together as Skadi released him and drew herself upwards (and inwards and away from the stern women he had spoken to until that moment). From his position, she seemed taller than before, all long limbs like tree branches covered by thin fabric. Bloodless features were so unlike his, like looking at a corrupted mirror which gathered what was dissimilar and heightened it until he couldn’t understand why father called her grandmother.

“We have a visitor.”

Without hesitation, the older woman slashed her fingers through the air in a movement which seemed as random as her words. Robb opened his mouth to interrupt her – was she mad, after all? - but as her hand moved, trails of light followed every finger. Like tears of dew resting on leaves in the early morning, they stood in the air, particles of snow and sunlight in shapeless fog. His eyes opened in fascination, staring at _magic_ , real and almost tangible right in front of him!

Jon would never believe him! _Father_ would never believe him!

Skadi cared little for his astonishment. Stern faced and upset, she continued drawing on the air in front of her, a large circle of bisected lines, parallel triangles nested together in a pattern only she could see. Blue light wafted in the breeze, reflecting upon her eyes and his. A final tweak, a final point. Five fingers splayed open as she laid her hand on the, apparently, solid light construction hanging onto thin air and _pushed_

It was cold. Robb shivered despite himself, tugging his coat closer before all his warmth was leached onto the suddenly frozen air. He looked around, as if he could see where the breeze had come from (he had seen light upon the air, he had seen drawings made by skin, he had seen his grandmother do magic; who could say he could not see the wind?). The only thing he saw was the fading sunlight. In the middle of the day, the clear sky had faded, covered in fluffy gray clouds which threatened a coming storm.

When had the clouds come?

When had the sun disappeared behind them, leaving only traces of warmth behind?

“I should let him die,” he heard her voice whisper. It was colder than the wind sneaking through his clothing. “I should rip him apart here and now.”

Who was she talking about? Robb tried to swallow any questions but the need to _know_ burned within him. All fear – all wonder – was eclipsed by pure curiosity.

“Are we being invaded? Do you need my help?”

Skadi stared down at him, neat little lines drawn between her brows. Oh. Father did that too. When he said something silly.

“I see this will be a recurring problem with you.” Her hand landed on his hair. It was heavy. So heavy, in fact, that he was not sure he would be able to take a step away from that very spot. “Don’t enter a battle before you know exactly what’s on the other side,” she whispered, every sound like carved onto his mind. Slowly, slowly, until it drowned out his own voice and all he could hear was the whisper of the wind. “Think. Wait. Evaluate. Not all victories are won because you wish it to be so.”

His feet wouldn’t move. He should know. He tried moving them.

“I shall go extend our welcome,” Skadi concluded. “You stay here, boy. You all stay away. If I cannot teach you to protect yourselves, I will force you to do so.”

 

**xxxXXXxxx**

Something was definitely wrong. Jon could feel it down to his very bones, partially hidden behind the cart someone had been emptying, peeking through the goods in search of whatever was happening. He just could not be sure of _what_. Everything seemed normal. People walked around, the hustle bustle of the midday far from finishing, the constant murmur of life stomping through the yard. He could see a hesitation to their steps though. People would stop out of nowhere and look around, frown without a reason before trudging along. Like they too could feel the wrongness in the wind, in the coming clouds, in the chill tiptoeing through his spine. Jon huddled in his cloak, trying to keep the cold away. It did not seem to work. Even though it was still early, it slid through his clothing like it was challenging the sun above.

If that had not been enough warning that something was deeply wrong, the woman’s arrival sure had been. Skadi had appeared in the courtyard without warning. Her angular features were emotionless as her feet ate the terrain in front of her in large footfalls, skirts snapping behind her in irritable movements. Her hands were tight on a bow, throwing a leather quiver to the floor as she stopped right in the middle of the stoned path.

The bow was easily twice his height, wasn’t it, he wondered. Bone, wood and leather, all of them dark as the night sky, all of them carefully smoothed by time and use. Skadi moved it matter-of-factly, unencumbered by its sheer weight and magnitude. She seemed so used to the item that it bothered her no more than the clothes she was wearing or the air entering her lungs. Jon felt a sudden urge to grasp it too. Would it feel like that to him as well? Could it be magical? Something out of a legend? Surely not but it did seem like it.

The boy poked his head from his hideout, trying to gain her attention. “Skadi?”

She reached onto her feet where the full quiver lay and removed one arrow. Dark, thick wood was lined against the thick leather and pulled. For a long moment, all Jon could hear was the rush of blood against his ears and the harsh grinding of the string as Skadi held it tight and aimed towards the roof of a nearby building.

“Not now, Jon. We have visitors.”

He could not see exactly what she was aiming at. Up, yes, up to the towers, up to the roofs. The sun was high in the sky and its shine bothered every time he tried to focus in it. He tried covering his eyes with open palms but the only thing that drew the attention was a little shadow. It rested against the bricks, its tiny shape dark against the light, unmoving despite the fact that it seemed to have gathered attention.

Wasn’t it a bird though? A little bird?

The first arrow slipped by it, just close enough to touch its golden wings. It screeched, complaining loudly about the incoming danger. Light eyes flitted like butterflies from side to side as small paws skidded upon the roof’s unsteady covering.

“Missed,” Skadi declared loudly, disregarding distracted gazes searching for the origin of the projectiles. “One shouldn’t leave pests to make their nests onto one’s home. Especially when they come unannounced, unexpected and unrequired.”

It was just a bird? Jon almost told her that (almost almost) only she was a grown-up and grown-ups did not like being proven wrong. Before he could say anything, another arrow had been notched; a single breath accompanied by the narrowing of silver eyes before the projectile was released onto the air. This time it clipped the bird’s leg, sending it back with a wounded shriek which resounded through the castle.

Loud. So _loud_. Like the piercing sound of broken glass, like old doors grinding against the stone floors. Pain slipped through Jon’s lips before he could contain it even as he stamped his hands over his ears and scrunched his eyes closed. Tears swam underneath his eyelids.

Before he could fall to the ground, rough arms were steadying him against a solid form. His fingers were pushed aside and replaced with another’s’. Jon swallowed tightly as his body leaned onto the protective being, waiting as the pain slowly receded. “I apologize,” he heard Skadi whisper through the protective cocoon of her fingers. “Sometimes I forget you are just a boy.”

She didn’t tell him to stop complaining. She didn’t ignore him. She waited until his ears stopped ringing, keeping him close enough to feel her chilled skin. He peeked up through slited eyes. Skadi didn’t seem angry at him. Passively annoyed, maybe but, as she was still facing the roof, he didn’t think that sentiment was reserved to him. Just when he had decided the feeling of being cared for for something so small as a little pain was rather nice, a string of laughter rang through the air, through her skin and echoed in his head. Low and full like the bird shrill had been, it resonated through the suddenly quiet courtyard.

There was an unknown man waiting by the Castle gates and it was he who had laughed. Tall – taller than father, taller than Skadi, taller even than Jori – towering over those nearby like one of the stone walls over the nearby streets. Unlike most of the people from the Northern lands, his hair was a dark golden color, honey glaze made strands and curls. Golden was also his skin, which shimmered under the sunlight like it was coated with bronze dust rather than the earth and grime it should have gained on the way to Winterfell. He wore no armor or skins, nothing bar a red linen tunic over his shoulders and equally light brown trousers. Underneath the fabric, lines of dark and blood-red danced over his skin in a drawing without beginning or end. If he blinked quickly, Jon could almost see them moving.

“He must be freezing,” he whispered.

“We should be so lucky.” Skadi’s voice was toneless.

Something of Robb’s upset moments lingered in her countenance; in the way she stared at the man as if that action itself would make the floor underneath the newcomer crumble into nothing. “Jon.” But if she was their grandmother – father’s grandmother? – it did make some sense that traits would pass on. “Jon.” His thoughts were derailed as Skadi shook him lightly. “Are you ears still paining you?”

The boy shook his head, dislodging the woman’s hands in the process.

“Only worrying about the mortal? I was the one you shot at.”

The man’s voice was low and rumbling, seemingly on the verge of laughter. Everything seemed brighter as he spoke, bright sun struggling through the clouds, the soft golden glow of sunlight falling over the remaining snow and reflecting onto the puddles of water surviving on the stone floors.

“A graze cannot kill you, you ridiculous fool.”

He strode through the space like he owned it. Reaching closer and closer to the woman, Jon expected him to attempt to hug her – it did seem like it! – but there was a little stutter in his movements before he stopped.

“That is clearly not my point, my dear Lady. What kind of welcome is this? I thought we had gone past careless attacks without provocation?” The man was armed. Jon hadn’t noticed until then. How come? It wasn’t odd that he had one, it wasn’t like the road was completely safe but the boy could swear that spear hadn’t been there a moment ago. And it was so large, so sharp. Skadi’s fingers tightened on his shoulder suddenly. When had he tried to walk away from her?

“I refrain when you manage to warn your arrival,” she stated neutrally. “And when you announce yourself instead of flitting in like a burglar in the night.”

The amusement faded in the man’s expression faded and any laughter died in its wake. Suddenly, he was a soldier, a visiting Lord, the sound of thunder and that spear was no longer an object of amazement but an actual threat. Jon’s shaking began anew underneath his heavy clothing. “Dear Lady, you need to spend far less time in that wilderness of yours if you don’t understand why I came here _unannounced_ ,” the blond commented accusingly. “You do realize that when a counterpart is demolishing others’ houses, one needs to check if she is planning on starting a war. For courtesy’s sake, as she doesn’t seem to bother with such things.”

The silence following those words was deafening. Jon looked around. People moved through the space but giving a wide berth, avoiding the place where they stood carefully. They made no sound. Similar to ghosts born out of fog, they walked in and out of the scene and did not interfere, their eyes carefully avoiding even the little boy in the middle of the two adults. It seemed as if they were in this protective bubble and nothing else could touch them. Only Jon could see it, trapped as he was behind his relative. Everything else was silence.

Like he had heard Jon’s thoughts, the man’s attention was lowered to him, as if only then he had noticed there was a spectator to this play.

_No, no, don’t come closer._

Jon swallowed those words. He was not a coward. He was a son of the Starks and he had a strong father and he had Skadi. He was not a coward. But he could not help but flinch as the blonde’s hand caressed his cheek. It was uncomfortably warm; not like father’s, not like Robb’s. It was the warmth of the hearth on a bright summer day. It was the pile of blankets in the morning trapping him beneath it until the boy could not breathe. Jon felt beads of sweat sliding down his cheeks even as clouds rolled over their heads.

“Meaning, you are prying,” Skadi continued.

Those grey clouds ate away at the clear sky, leaving only in their place the scent of coming snow storm. Jon breathed deeply the cold air. It was nice. It drove away his unease.

“Prying is such an ugly word, Snow lady,” the man stared at him attentively as Jon pushed himself onto Skadi’s shadows. _Go away_ , Jon almost whispered, _leave me be_. That golden gaze seemed to burn right through him until he was nothing of importance. Until he was nothing at all. “I prefer…curiosity,” he finished. “Kind interest. Need to know if I should start making further preparations for unwanted visitors. My Lady wife would hate to have to bloody the realms anew.”

Skadi did not seem to fear him at all. A little amazement grew in his heart. A little. How could she do face him so easily when all Jon wanted was to turn back? How could she face those eyes without fear? Gnashing his teeth together, Jon forced himself straighter. He was in his home and this man was _not_! Why should he be the one afraid inside the walls of his own Castle? His fingers were still touching the woman’s skirts but they were closed in tight fists and he looked up to their visitor instead of away in shame.

The man smiled down at him. A wide smile full of sharp teeth.

“It is not unusual to clean the pests from one’s home,” she declared lowly.

“It is not, I agree!” The man confirmed brightly, butting the end of his spear against the floor in a makeshift applause. “But it would be nice if we had some warning in case we need to clean them away from the continent.”

“Likely it won’t be necessary. This was a particular case.”

“Was it in any way related to this?” No. No, his attention was back and his golden eyes and the heat Winterfell never felt. Jon’s fingers crept up until they found Skadi’s wrist and tightened like a vice. “I can’t help but noticed you are being too frank in his presence. We would expect you not to start another war over your progeny.”

“Did you fear I would finally walk south?” The tiny trace of sunlight that had edged the clouds aside, struggled against an impending gale. “You’d do better to make this warning to Thor or his dog. He seems to attack his betters the second his whims aren’t answered. Or did you decided it had been a good while since you had last tested my patience?”

There was another moment of silence. If Jon didn’t know better – and he did – it seemed a moment of embarrassed silence, like when they did something foolish at dinner and everyone else was waiting for him to notice. He half expected Odr to scuffle his foot against the ground just like Robb would do.

“Fine. If you wish for me to be crude and blunt, I will do so,” the man complained loudly, crashing the silent moment into nothing. “Are you going South or not?”

“No.”

That sounded like a _not yet_ to Jon’s ears. Maybe the man was ignoring it?

“Then that was all I wanted to know! Lovely! Then I will be going and return in…I want to say three?” Odr looked up at the skies with their décor of grey and white. “Though it looks far more from where I stand. So be it, three.”

“I would be so glad if it you did not but that seems to be out of my control.” For the first time since she had entered, Skadi smiled. It was a slow smile, a small twist of pale lips which seemed more of a threat than actual amusement. “Before you go though.”

The skin beneath Jon’s was taunt, taunt, taunt, about to break apart and Jon felt it, Jon knew the exact moment when Skadi moved, raising the dark longbow in her hands. It creaked, fast as lightning, the wood screeching against the strength applied in tandem with the winds above. The momentum was enough to push him away from her, where he could see the scene as if time had slowed. A dark arrow, a push of wind and then the horrible sound of suction as the projectile dove through the man’s foot and onto the ground.

It was not as all like the stories. Jon watched horrified as Odr flinched in pain – mirrored by himself without his awareness – as the skin broke apart further when the man attempted to raise his foot only to realize the arrow was well and truly stuck in the icy ground bellow. Jon felt himself sway as if the sickness had not disappeared still, lingering in hidden areas of his body and choosing that one moment of weakness to rear its ugly head.

“I dislike being threatened upon my own lands. If I had had my wish,” Skadi stated calmly, pulling both bow and quiver onto her shoulder. “I would have done much more than see my children starting a war. I would have walked with them and frozen every stone from here to Dorne. But I could not. You did not allow me to. That is a debt I will remember.” She used the small pause in her speech to grab Jon onto her arms before he fell or did something silly. Like running to check if the man was fine. “Make sure everyone else does too, hm?”

A stain grew from the man’s gruesomely ripped flesh. Dark and viscous as mud, it crawled down ever so slowly as if it was refusing to leave the body it had been housed in. The boy could not look away from it. “Was that really necessary?”

“As much as your invitation," she confirmed. "Now leave the north.”

Saying nothing else, the black-haired lady turned her back, uncaring of the man she was leaving behind, still attempting to dislodge the arrow from the floor. The surge of nausea returned, resting patiently in the back of Jon's throat. This was Skadi too. Different, his father had said, dangerous, someone capable of leaving a man bloodied behind her but still carry a child between her arms, protected in her embrace. Jon didn’t know if he should feel afraid of her or not. If he should ask her questions about what had happened or not. Staring at her expression – impassive and withdrawn – did not help.

“When you see that bird again, shoot it down.”

Jon remained silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Odr; norse god of summer, freyja's husband, wanderer extraordinaire and dude who should really learn to knock. All the chill.

**Author's Note:**

> This story began as a sort of spin off of 'beloved to me is every mountain and peak' where the idea of the old gods being based on Norse mythology was first suggested. It is likely going to continue though I'm not sure if I will do it in a normal chapter by chapter type of story or dump a bunch of one-shots of this universe one after the other. I will see what comes up. That said, a couple of explanations for this universe.
> 
> Old Gods - are restricted to their territories. Thor will be found dwelling on the Stormlands while Skadi wanders around the North and through the wall. Can only be seen by their believers or people who believe in no one. I.e., the reason why Catelyn saw her for the first time was related to her small crisis of faith over Jon's sickness (did the seven cause it? Did they not? Are they saving him for her? Are they not? Etc).  
> Starks - descendants of Skadi and Njord. Very very very very much down the family tree.


End file.
